Yup us too, picked up campervan straight away; no problem with luggage coz Air N Z left our cases in London!! But great to be flexible straight away, and get out of Auckland and have first night in beautiful place. Very exciting for the kids too!

Just be careful not to drive too far on the first day, if you do that straight off the flight - there have been a couple of cases of very bad crashes with people not realising how tired they are.

It all depends what time your flight gets in as well - ours got in a midnight so we went straight to the motel for a long awaited bed!

Good luck and enjoy your trip!

Oh yeah - the suitcases, we were lucky to have huge camper with a big bench like seat at the back which could be accessed from inside or out - this was big enough for our cases, but a lot of the campervan hire places will store your cases if you ask - but obviously you have to be returning to the same depot!

Last edited by marcia; 3rd July 2008 at 10:21 AM.
Reason: add more advice

With young children, it is sooooo easy to use campervan rather than hotel because we don't have to repack (we used soft bags too for easy to pack it away) every times we leave hotel to next hotel etc and also you can stop anywhere you like for a cup of tea in campervan rather looking for nearer cafe as well as toilet
Also kids have plenty of space to run around, use climbing frames and pools to stretch their legs and while I was cooking their dinner too.

i was singing in the supermarket this morning im so excited - got some strange looks

May I ask you, how old is your kids? for car seats reasons....

EDIT: just found information on your kids...you got a baby which will be in rear-facing seat...I have travelling in campervan when my middle child (daughter) was 9weeks old and again when my youngest (son) was 10 weeks old.
Ensure that you check for NO airbag in passenger seat as most of campervans have them in passenger's side.
You can put baby in the back BUT not at far rear because when you go over the bumping road (lots of them in NZ ) it is hurting my neck/back when I sat at the back with my MIL, not ideal for baby and toddler . So we put our baby and toddler in the middle part of campervan which got two digonal seat belts (not very easy to find them.. did visited seven campervan companies to see all 6 berth van to find the right one to suit our family of five (then 4, 22months and 10weeks) plus MIL with three car seats to think about, need to be no airbag, need to be digonal seat belt for baby seat and also away from the rear, ie middle of campervan is best for baby as well as front seat)
The campervan we hired in the end was 6 berth from www.wendekreisen.co.nz and they are cheaper we have found for this type of 6 berth (there was two other companies have these type of campervan). They are based in Auckland and Christchurch, and yes they do one-way.
HTH